Archive for the ‘ben zobrist’ tag

Nats Nation breathes a sigh of relief; it was just a cramp. Or was it? Photo via thesportsquotient.com

Warning: lots of judgments based on short sample sizes and possibly not taking into account other factors that may have been in play during 3- and 4-game series, which are in reality a small fraction of a season. And yes I know, past performance is no indicator of future performance. Just read and stop being a buzz-kill will ya?

So, we’ve known for a while that we were going to face the Cubs in the NLDS. But now its official. So lets peek back at our two series against them this year to see how our guys matched up to see if there’s any places to keep an eye on. On a macro level, we took the season series from the Cubs 4-3, outscoring them 39-28 in the process. We split four games at home in June, then took 2 of 3 against them on the road in August.

Nats Starters: Here’s how our playoff starters fared against the Cubs this year:

Max Scherzer went 6, gave up 2 hits and a run with a victory over Chicago at home in June. That sounds pretty good.

Stephen Strasburg went 7, punched out 13 (!) and gave up 3 runs (2 earned) in a home victory in June. I’ll take that.

Gio Gonzalez went 6, gave up just two hits (good) but walked 5 (bad) , managed to give up just one run (good) and was an unlucky loser in the June home series.

Tanner Roark went 6+, gave up 2 runs on 5 hits and took a loss in Chicago in August. Not bad.

The other three starts against the Cubs were Joe Ross in June, Edwin Jackson in August and Erick Fedde in August, so the Cubs have only seen our starters once each this year.

So, all four of our starters basically had quality starts against the Cubs this year. That sounds promising. No red flags. We’ll ignore the fact that both Gio and Roark got bombed on the season’s closing day. Maybe they were hung over.

Jon Lester went 6, gave up 3 hits and a run in a no-decision in the June finale. Tough.

Lester threw another QS in August, going 6 2/3rds, giving up 3 runs on 6 hits and getting a ND against Fedde. Not bad.

Jake Arrieta was super-wild, walking 6 in 4 innings and taking the loss against Scherzer in June. Uncharacteristic performance.

Kyle Hendricks went 7, giving up 3 runs on 5 hits and took a loss against Roark in the August series. About what you’d want out of a 3rd starter.

Jose Quintana was a mid-season acquisition and did not pitch against us this year.

The other starts against us were thrown by Eddie Butler (who hails from Chesapeake, went to power-house Greenbrier Christian and was a 1st rounder out of Radford a few years back) and Jon Lackey (twice).

So, Lester was solid against us twice, Arrieta had an uncharacteristic struggle, and Hendricks was good but not dominant. Quintana has thrown to a 3.74 ERA in his 14 starts, good but not lights out. I have no idea how they’ll line up for the playoffs but think it may be as they’re listed above (maybe Quintana is #3 and Hendricks is #4). It does look like Lackey is odd-man out of the Chicago rotation, which should be a fun conversation with their manager.

Summary: I like how our Starting Pitching lines up frankly; Scherzer is Scherzer, Strasburg has been unhittable for two months, and Gonzalez has been sneaky good all year. Gonzalez and Roark project to pitch in Chicago … but Gio’s away splits are pretty good this year (11-5 with a 3.12 ERA).

Nats Hitters; here’s how some of our key hitters have fared against Chicago starters in their career (thanks to the wonderful baseball-reference.com per-Pitcher stats):

Bryce Harper is 1-7 against Lester, 4-14 against Arrieta, 4-13 against Hendricks and has never faced Quintana. At least his one hit against Lester was a dong.

Daniel Murphy is 4-14 against Lester, 6-19 against Arrieta, 4-15 against Hendricks and also has never faced Quintana. Better.

Ryan Zimmerman is 2-16 against Lester, 5-21 against Arrieta, 0-9 against Hendricks and has also never faced Quintana. Might be a rough series for Zim.

Trea Turner is 1-2 against Lester, 1-2 against Arrieta, and has never faced either Hendricks or Quintana. Not much to go on here.

Jayson Werth is 2-4 against Lester, 2-9 against Arrieta, 0-3 against Hendricks and has never faced Quintana. About what you’d expect.

Anthony Rendon is 1-5 against Lester, 4-11 against Arrieta, 2-11 against Hendricks and has never faced Quintana. Not bad.

I didn’t bother looking up Wieters or Taylor numbers because I expect little from them this off-season; anything they contribute is gravy. Our 1-6 hitters need to make it happen.

Kris Bryant is 1-10 against Max, 2-5 against Stras, 2-10 against Gio and a strong 5-11 against Roark. Might be an interesting series for the defending NL MVP.

Anthony Rizzo is 3-10 against Max, 2-13 against Stras, 2-22 against Gio and 4-18 against Roark. Clearly the lefty and Roark’s swing-back fastball is effective against him.

Willson Contreras has never faced Scherzer, is 1-3 against Strasburg, 1-2 against Gio, 1-3 against Roark. Almost no history go go on.

Javier Baez is 0-5 vs Max, 0-6 against Stras, 0-6 against Gio and 1-3 against Roark. Not a lot of success here for Baez.

Kyle Schwarber has just two ABs against any of our starters, going 1-2 in a game against Roark.

I’m not entirely sure that Schwarber will play (he had 30 homers but an awful BA), nor Baez (since the Cubs have Ben Zobrist). But these are the key bats for the Cubs and there’s not a ton to go on. It seems like Bryant will be a handful, Rizzo may be an issue against some of our guys, and the rest of the squad could hit or miss (which, perhaps, is what you’d say also having not seen any of these stats).

So how does it look overall? I like our chances, honestly. I don’t like how Harper has looked since his “return” so that’s a huge worry, but I like our chances with the Cubs having to beat Scherzer twice and Strasburg once in a short series, and I like Gio going against the power hitting lefties in Chicago’s lineup. I like our revamped bullpen, especially if we never have to depend on the 5th and 6th guy out of it.

It comes down to this injury scare at this point; is Scherzer going to be ok? Can the Nats survive if Scherzer is out and we’re forced to give a playoff start to Jackson?

Narrative: For the second year in a row, the Nats are well and properly represented in the All Star Game. We have three starters named in the field, including Zimmerman who beats out a slew of 1B sluggers in the NL to not only make the team but get his first start. Its also likely i’ll be editing this post and adding in Scherzer as an additional starter; he is the obvious choice to start the game for the NL given his first half production (7/10/17 update: yes indeed we did). Rendon is having a very quiet solid season and is in the “last 5” popular vote, but he seems unlikely to win given that last year’s MVP Kris Bryant is also in the voting (Update: neither guy got in). Gonzalez misses out despite having a better first half than Strasburg by nearly any statistic; he’s having a career year but seems unlikely to get rewarded with his 3rd ASG appearance. There’s no other real snub from our 2017 team; certainly there’s nobody in the bullpen meriting a spot, and Trea Turner‘s torrid 2016 2nd half did not translate into the 2017 season (not to mention, he’s had two separate D/L trips). Once again i’m slightly perturbed that Harper continues to refuse to participate in the HR derby; why the reticence? Its a fun event that is quickly becoming better than the actual game itself and practically every other slugger is participating. Is he afraid to lose? On a larger scale, i’m really happy to see (finally) that deserving rookies are named: Aaron Judge and Cody Bellinger are both named and are both on the inside track for ROY awards; too many times in the past we see deserving rookies unnamed. On July 10th, the fourth Nat starter was named: Scherzer got the starting pitcher nod, a first for the Nats. August Update: Rendon’s omission is looking even more ridiculous; he’s top 5 in the league in bWAR.

Narrative: The four obvious candidates from the Nats this year were all initially correctly selected, though voting shenanigans out of Chicago elected Ben Zobrist over Daniel Murphy by a scant 500 votes. I thought perhaps Strasburg would have a chance to start the game, given his 12-0 record, but it seems the team pre-empted any such thought when Scherzer’s naming occurred. For the first time writing this post, I can’t really name any “snubs” and the team has (finally?) earned the proper respect it deserves in terms of naming its players properly. Espinosa had a week for the ages just prior to the end of voting but really stood little chance of selection in the grand scheme of things. He’s not really a “snub” but is worthy of mention based on his resurgent year. At the break, Espinosa ranked 3rd in NL fWAR but 7th or 8th in bWAR thanks to differing defensive value metrics, so maybe/maybe not on him being a “snub.” As pointed out in the comments, even I missed the sneaky good season Roark is having; he’s 12th in the NL in bWAR at the break and 9th in fWAR but was left off in favor of any number of starters that stand below him in value rankings. Unfortunately for fans (and for Harper’s “Make Baseball Fun again” campaign, he opted to skip the Home Run Derby again. I guess its kind of like the NBA superstars skipping the dunk contest; the Union should really do a better job of helping out in this regard. The new format is fantastic and makes the event watchable again; is it ego keeping him from getting beat by someone like Giancarlo Stanton?

Narrative: Harper not only made it in as a starter for the 2nd time, he led the NL in votes, setting a MLB record for total votes received. This is no surprise; Harper’s easily in the MVP lead for the NL thanks to his amazing first half (his split at the half-way point of the season: .347/.474/.722 with 25 homers and an astounding 225 OPS+). I guess he won’t be earning the “Most overrated player” award next year. That Harper is electing to skip the Home run derby in a disappointment; his father is nursing an arm injury can cannot throw to him in the event. In a weird year for the Nats, the only other regular worth mentioning is newly acquired Escobar, who is hitting above .300 and filling in ably at multiple positions that, prior to this year, he had never played. Storen is having another excellent regular season … but at a time when mandatory members from each team often leads to other closers being selected (there are 5 NL closers and 7 AL relievers), the odds of him making the All-Star team were always going to be slim. Scherzer deservedly makes the team and probably would have been the NL starter; he’s got sub 2.00 ERA and FIP and leads all NL pitchers in WAR at the mid-way point of the season. But his turn came up in the final game of the first half, making him ineligible for the game and forcing his replacement on the roster.

As a side note, the 2015 All-Star game will go down as the “Ballot-Gate” game thanks to MLB’s short-sighted plan to allow 30+ online ballots per email address. This led to severe “ballot stuffing” by the Kansas City Royals fans, led to MLB having to eliminate 60 million+ fraudulent ballots, but still led to several Royals being elected starters over more deserving candidates.

Nationals All-Star representative: Jordan Zimmermann (Update post-publishing: Zimmermann strained a bicep, and had to withdraw from the ASG. For a bit it looked like the Nats wouldn’t even have a representative, until Tyler Clippardwas named on 7/13/14).

Narrative: Zimmermann’s been the best SP on the best pitching staff in the majors this year, and thus earns his spot. I find it somewhat odd that a first place team (or near to it) gets just one representative on the team (as discussed above). Rendon tried to make the team via the “last man in” voting, but historically Nationals have not fared well in this competition (especially when better known players from large markets are in the competition, aka Anthony Rizzo from the Chicago Cubs), and indeed Rendon finished 4th in the last-man voting. LaRoche is having a very good season, almost single handedly carrying the Nats offense while major parts were out injured, but he’s never going to beat out the slew of great NL first basemen (Joey Votto couldn’t even get into this game). Soriano has quietly put together one of the best seasons of any closer in the game; at the time of this writing he has a 1.03 ERA and a .829 whip; those are Dennis Eckersley numbers. But, the farce that is the all-star game selection criteria (having to select one player from each team) means that teams need a representative, and deserving guys like Soriano get squeezed. Then, Soriano indignantly said he wouldn’t even go if named as a replacement … likely leading to Clippard’s replacement selection. The same goes for non-closer Storen, who sports a sub 2.00 ERA on the year. Advanced stats columnists (Keith Law) also think that Stephen Strasburg is a snub but I’m not entirely sure: he may lead the NL in K’s right now and have far better advanced numbers than “traditional,” but its hard to make an argument that a guy with a 7-6 record and a 3.50+ ERA is all-star worthy.

Narrative: Harper comes in 3rd in the NL outfielder voting, ahead of some big-time names, to become only the second Nationals position player elected as an All-Star starter. He was 4th in the final pre-selection vote, so a big last minute push got him the starter spot. Harper also becomes the first National to participate in the Home Run Derby. Zimmermann was 12-3 heading into the game and was on mid-season Cy Young short lists in July in a breakout season. Strasburg’s advanced stats are all better than Zimmermann’s, but his W/L record (4-6 as the ASG) means he’s not an all-star. It also probably doesn’t help that he missed a few weeks. Desmond loses out to Troy Tulowitzki, Everth Cabrera and Jean Segura. Tulowitzki was having a very solid year and was a deserving elected starter, while Cabrera and Segura are both having breakout seasons. Desmond was on the “Final vote” roster, but my vote (and most others’ I’m guessing) would be for Yasiel Puig there ([Editor Update: Desmond and Puig lost out to Freddie Freeman: I still wished that Puig finds a way onto the roster but ultimately he did not and I believe the ASG was diminished because of it). Gio Gonzalez, Ryan Zimmerman, and Rafael Soriano are all having solid but unspectacular years and miss out behind those having great seasons.

Narrative: The two SPs Strasburg and Gonzalez were the obvious candidates, and my personal prediction was that they’d be the only two candidates selected. Gonzalez’ first half was a prelude to his 21-win, 3rd place Cy Young season. The inclusion of Desmond is a surprise, but also a testament to how far he’s come as a player in 2012. Harper was a last-minute injury replacement, but had earned his spot by virtue of his fast start as one of the youngest players in the league. Of the “snubs,” LaRoche has had a fantastic come back season in 2012 but fared little shot against better, more well-known NL first basemen. Stammen was our best bullpen arm, but like LaRoche fared little chance of getting selected during a year when the Nats had two deserving pitchers selected.

Narrative: While Clippard was (arguably) the Nats best and most important reliever, I think Zimmermann was a more rightful choice. He was 10th in the league in ERA at the time of the selections and has put in a series of dominant performances. Meanwhile Espinosa was on pace for a 28-homer season and almost a certain Rookie-of-the-Year award (though a precipitous fall-off in the 2nd half cost him any realistic shot at the ROY), and perhaps both players are just too young to be known around the league. Lastly Morse is certainly known and he merited a spot in the “last man in” vote sponsored by MLB (though he fared little chance against popular players in this last-man-in voting).

Narrative: Capps was clearly deserving, having a breakout season as a closer after his off-season non-tender from the Pirates. The 3-4-5 hitters Zimmerman-Dunn-Willingham all had dominant offensive seasons as the team improved markedly from its 103-loss season. But perhaps the surprise non-inclusion was Strasburg, who despite only having a few starts as of the all-star break was already the talk of baseball. I think MLB missed a great PR opportunity to name him to the team to give him the exposure that the rest of the national media expected. But in the end, Capps was a deserving candidate and I can’t argue that our hitters did anything special enough to merit inclusion.

Narrative: The addition of Dunn and Willingham to the lineup gave Zimmerman the protection he never had, and he produced with his career-best season. His first and deserved all-star appearance en-route to a 33 homer season. Dunn continued his monster homer totals with little all-star recognition.

Narrative: The first of two “hitting rock-bottom” seasons for the team; no one really merited selection. Zimmerman was coming off of hamate-bone surgery in November 2007 and the team was more or less awful across the board. Rauch performed ably after Cordero went down with season-ending (and basically career-ending) shoulder surgery. Guzman’s selection a great example of why one-per-team rules don’t make any sense. Guzman ended up playing far longer than he deserved in the game itself by virtue of the 15-inning affair.

Narrative: Young gets a deserved all-star appearance en route to comeback player of the year. Zimmerman played a full season but didn’t dominate. Our 2007 staff gave starts to 13 different players, most of whom were out of the league within the next year or two. Not a good team.

Narrative: Soriano made the team as an elected starter, the first time the Nats have had such an honor. Our pitching staff took massive steps backwards and no starter came even close to meriting a spot. Cordero was good but not lights out as he had been in 2005. Soriano’s 40-40 season is a poster child for “contract year” production and he has failed to come close to such production since. The team was poor and getting worse. Johnson had a career year but got overshadowed by bigger, better first basemen in the league (a recurring theme for our first basemen over the years).

Narrative: The Nats went into the All Star break surprisingly in first place, having run to a 50-31 record by the halfway point. Should a first place team have gotten more than just two representatives? Perhaps. But the team was filled with non-stars and played far over its head to go 50-31 (as evidenced by the reverse 31-50 record the rest of the way).

More obscure stats on players are sometimes found at places like thebaseballcube.com, perfectgame.org, their college websites, twitter accounts for the players, and good old fashioned deep-dive googling.

This review is especially important to follow because the high-school age draftees in this 2012 class are Rule-5 eligible this coming off-season. Not that there’s that many of them, but we’ll put a pin in this post when we eventually do Rule-5 Analysis later this month.

With out further ado…

Round 1: (#16 overall) Lucas Giolito HS RH Starting pitcher: 6.75 ERA in 21 1/3 MLB innings, 6-5 with a 2.97 ERA mostly in AA but with 7 starts in AAA. 116/44 K/BB in 115 1/3 minor league innings. I feel, much like the 2016 presidential election, that most of us are girded in our opinions on Giolito at this point. I think Giolito’s entire season was tainted by the stories of mechanical tweaks done by some ne’er-do-weller in Viera, and his results on the field showed. He struggled with command and hit-ability during his brief time with the MLB team, and his velocity was down from where we were “expecting” it to be. Its important to remember that he just turned 22, that he lost a significant amount of development time because of his TJ surgery, and that we should be patient. But he definitely has a “todo list” for 2017. I’m projecting that he starts in AAA until he proves that he can command his fastball. Matriculated to Majors. Post-writing update: Giolito headlined a trade for Adam Eaton, heading to the White Sox. On his way out the door, word was leaked to multiple reporters that the Nats had “soured” on Giolito, questioning his toughness and his ceiling. Luckily for Giolito, the White Sox pitching coach (Don Cooper) is quite well regarded, so if there’s someone out there that can “fix” whatever’s wrong with him, its Cooper. I’ve updated the summary for his departure, which significantly thins this draft class.

Round 2: (80) Tony Renda, Coll Jr 2B: Traded to the Yankees on 6/11/15 for David Carpenter. Renda then was included in the package that the Yankees sent to Cincinnati for Aroldis Chapman. For Cincinnati, Renda got 67 ABs this year and hit .183. Post-writing update: hat tip to commenter KW, Renda was outrighted to AAA earlier this month. He may have matriculated to the majors, but its safe to classify him as a AAA-ceiling player now.

Round 5: (174) Spencer Kieboom, Coll Jr C: Slashed .230/.324/.314 in 309 ABs for AA Harrisburg. 61/43 K/BB in 94 games splitting time behind the dish, 5 homers, 0 SB. Kieboom didn’t have the best numbers hitting in AA; he’s known for his defense. He became the final nats 40-man call-up when Wilson Ramos tore his ACL and got exactly one MLB at-bat (and thus permanently qualifying him for the MLB health plan for the rest of his days). He’s a catcher on the 40-man roster; he’s going to play in 2017. The question is where; right now depending on whether the team acquires another catcher, Pedro Severino may get pushed back to AAA, which may very well keep Kieboom in AA starting. Only makes sense. But if the team decides to keep Severino up, then Kieboom moves up too. Trending steady. Post-writing update: the team went and acquired Derek Norris, which now pushes Kieboom to 4th out of 4 on the depth chart, almost guaranteeing that he’ll be in AA again (you can’t have both Severino and Kieboom splitting time in AAA; that makes no sense). I don’t think this necessarily changes his projection, since Jose Lobaton hits so poorly, but he does have to climb over Severino if he wants to matriculate permanently.

Round 7: (234) Robert Benincasa, Coll Jr. RH relief pitcher: 1-1 with a 4.50 ERA in 21 appearances and 30 relief innings for AA. 35/14 K/BB in 30 IP, 1.50 whip, 4.69 fip, .329 babip for AA. Benincasa threw a few outings in Potomac but we’re just focusing on AA numbers here. He repeated AA for the third successive season and had good K/9 numbers but not much else in support. I’m guessing he sticks around for one more season, likely in the AAA bullpen, and plays out the 6-year string before hitting MLFA after next season. Unless he runs into a numbers game; there’s likely at least three 40-man roster guys that will get pushed to the AAA bullpen, limiting jobs for org-arms like Benincasa. He could be a release candidate before the full season squads break next spring. Trending down.

Round 8: (264) Stephen Perez, Coll Jr. SS: Slashed .249/.351/.342 playing middle infield for Harrisburg. 59/47 K/BB in 301 ABs, 5 homers, 12SB. Perez was a Ben Zobrist-like player for AA, getting PT at all four infield positions plus left field. His slash figures were definitely an improvement over prior seasons, and may have stabilized his chances of moving up. All of the middle infielders for AAA this year are FAs (I believe) so there’s room for him to move up. I don’t view him as anything other than an org-guy though, and (like Benincasa above) seems likely to play out his contract and hit MLFA next season. Trending Steady.

Round 9:(294) Derek Self, Coll Sr. RH relief pitcher: 4-2 with a 4.10 ERA mostly with AA Harrisburg. 43/18 K/BB in 52 2/3 innings, 1.48 whip, 3.98 whip, .333 babip. Self started the year briefly in Potomac’s bullpen but quickly returned to AA, where he spent most of the year. He got a 9/1 call-up to fill a bullpen spot in AAA. He improved his ERA over last year’s AA session and continues to hang on despite his lack of draft pedigree. I don’t see that he’s earned a promotion to AAA, and with a potentially packed AAA bullpen he may be back in AA again or to be a release candidate at this point. He turns 27 in January; I think the team knows what they have with him by this point. Trending down.

Round 10: (324) Craig Manuel, Coll Sr C: Released 4/2/16 after (presumably) failing to win the backup catcher job at either Potomac or Harrisburg. Time ran out for the locak product (born in Rockville, MD).

Round 11: (354) Brian Rauh, Coll Jr RH starter/reliever: Missed the entire 2016 season due to injury. Borrowing from last year’s analysis, if he’s healthy expect him to contend for the AA rotation in 2017. If he’s not healthy, he’s a release candidate at this point. Trending down.

Round 15: (474) Brandon Smith, OF:Didn’t sign. Attended Division II Grand Canyon University, where he played four years. He hit a robust .348/.402/.478 as a junior but wasn’t drafted, then slumped to hit just .233 his senior year. Again not drafted, might be done with baseball.

Round 16: (504) Ronald Pena, Juco-2 RH starter/reliever: threw just 8 innings for Low-A Hagerstown before hitting the D/L in late April; he got another few innings in GCL rehab sessions but it was a lost season for Pena. I’d say he’s a release candidate unless the team likes something they see, but he’s now thrown just 18 innings in two seasons and the two A-ball full season squads seem pretty full. Trending Down.

Round 25: (774) Freddy Avis, RHP: didn’t sign. Attending Stanford, where in 2013 he appeared in exactly one game and pitched 2 innings before suffering a season-ending injury. That injury never got better and he retired from baseball altogether in March of 2015.

Round 26: (804) Skye Bolt, RHP: didn’t sign. Attended UNC, had an excellent college career and was a 4th round pick in 2015 by the Oakland A’s. Hit .231 for Oakland’s low-A team this year.

Round 27: (834) Cody Poteet, RHP: didn’t sign. Attended UCLA and got drafted (like Bolt) in the 4th round of the 2015 draft by the Marlins. Was 4-9 with a 2.91 ERA starting in the Sally league this year.

Round 30: (924) Robert “R.C.” Orlan Coll Jr LH Starter: 5-6 with a 3.93 ERA relieving and sometimes closing for High-A Potomac. 46/46 K/BB ratio in 52 2/3 innings (no, that wasn’t a typo). 1.61 whip, 5.16 fip, .250 babip. I’m not quite sure what happened to Orlan’s control, since it looked just fine in 2015 (85/28 K/BB ratio in 72 relief IP). The Virginia product (UNC by way of Deep Run HS in Glen Allen, VA) definitely needs to get his walks under control to keep moving up, but is a potential lefty reliever in a system that could use one. I’ll say Trending Steady and project him for the AA bullpen.

Round 34: Jake Jefferies, 2B: didn’t sign. Attended Cal State Fullerton and subsequently drafted again by the Nats in the 39th round in 2015. As we found out in our 2015 post, he was released in July 2016.

Round 35: Corey Bafidis, LHP: didn’t sign but Washington picked him in 2013. As we learned in the 2013 post, he got released in July 2014.

Round 36: Max Ungar, C: didn’t sign. Went to the Charles E Smith Jewish Day school in Bethesda and attended Division III Denison, where he did seem to ever play. A quick google search found him on linkedin; he graduated in 2016 and now works in the DC area. I’ll venture a guess that this was a “favor pick” to someone with ties to the organization.

Round 37: Tyler Watson, LHP: didn’t sign. Attended Kansas U for a year, then bounced to McLennan Community College in Waco, TX and and got drafted by the Angels in the 38th round of the 2014 draft. He had a 3.42 ERA for the Angels’ low-A squad in 2016. This is *not* the same Tyler Watson, by the way, that the Nats drafted in the 2015 draft.

Round 38: Jarred Messer, RHP: didn’t sign. Graduate from Malone college and has pitched the last three years with the Kansas City T-Bones in the independent American Association, going 4-5 in 2016.

Round 39: Mitchell Williams, C: didn’t sign. Attended the Marion Military Institute in Alabama, for which I cannot find any stats.

Round 40: Ricky Gutierrez, CF: didn’t sign. Presumably playing football for U-Conn, as per the Draft Tracker.

We have speculated that this would be a one-player draft, and we’re getting closer to that reality. Only Giolito is “succeeding” right now, and there’s rather fierce debate about his “ceiling.” Renda technically has matriculated to the majors as well, but his .183 BA there isn’t exactly all-star calibre (and he was just outrighted, meaning he may be downgraded to “peak before majors” in future versions of this post). Kieboom is on the 40-man roster but is 3rd out of 3 4th out of 4 on the Nats Catcher depth chart and may not even play in AAA next year. The only other two guys remaining from this draft class even projected to be trending steady are both clearly org-guys who are playing out the string (Perez, Orlan). Of the 8 remaining players from this draft, Giolito is on the 40-man and no one else merited any discussion for Rule 5 protection this coming December.

If there was some complaint about the 2013 draft class … then how do you feel about this one? I remember arguing in this space about whether a one-man draft could be a success if that one player was a perennial all-star (as Giolito projected to be for a while) and there was differing opinions on the subject. Well, now that there’s questions about what Giolito will eventually be, now how do you feel about this draft class?

More obscure stats on players are sometimes found at places like thebaseballcube.com, perfectgame.org, their college websites, twitter accounts for the players, and good old fashioned deep-dive googling.

This review is especially important to follow because the college-age draftees in this 2013 class are Rule-5 eligible this coming off-season. I think its a big reason why several of these guys are in the AFL right now, and their performance may or may not influence the team’s decision to protect or leave exposed. We’ll put a pin in this post when we eventually do Rule-5 Analysis later this month.

With out further ado…

Round 1: forfeited w/ Rafael Soriano signing, which as I noted in this June 2013 post cost the Nats a shot at one of several highly regarded pitchers drafted just behind our vacated spot (the Cardinals actually took Kaminsky, but I doubt the Nats would have; i think they would have taken Manaea). Here’s a quick summary of 2016’s season for the guys I liked at the time in that spot (Rob Kaminsky, Sean Manaea, Ryne Stanek, Ian Clarkin):

Kaminsky: 11-7 with a 3.28 ERA in a full season starting for AA in his age 22 year. Was flipped in 2015 to Cleveland from St. Louis (his drafting team) in the Brandon Moss deal.

Manaea: 7-9 with a 3.86 ERA in 24 starts for Oakland this year. Was flipped in 2015 to Oakland from Kansas City (his drafting team) in the Ben Zobrist deal.

Stanek: split time between AA and AAA, was removed from the rotation and struggled in relief.

I’ve more than said my peace on how much I disagreed with the Soriano signing and its opportunity cost. Lets move on.

Round 2: Jake Johansen, Coll Sr. RHP (Starter, now a Reliever) Dallas Baptist U. 4-1 3.19 ERA across 3 levels in 2016. 29/22 K/BB in 36 2/3 mostly middle relief innings. 1.64 whip. Johansen started the year in Potomac, walked 11 guys in 6 appearances and was dumped back to XST. Once the GCL started he threw a few innings in Florida before joining Hagerstown for the rest of the year. He had 11 appearances and 19 IP in Low-A with good numbers … but at this point in his career (he’ll turn 26 in a couple of months) and given where he was drafted, the fact that he can’t seem to cut it anywhere above Low-A ball seems like a pretty succinct judgement of the pick. I’m guessing he hangs around until he hits 6-years in the system, but any hopes of him turning into even a marginal middle reliever seem shot. If he was anything other than a big-bonus 2nd rounder he would have likely been released already. He’s toiling in the AFL and (as of this writing) had only given up one run in 9 innings, but had a measly 3 punch-outs against the elite hitters of the minors. With any luck, this confidence boost will carry over into 2017. Trending Down.

Round 3: Drew Ward, HS 3B. Slashed .252/.348/.412 across 2 levels, ending the year in Harrisburg. 121/56 K/BB in 408 ABs, 14 homers. Ward’s age 21 season went pretty well; he started the year in Potomac but posted an .868 OPS there in 53 games to force his promotion to AA. He hit just .219 once he got there though, which means we’re likely seeing him back there in 2017. His strikeout rate remains a problem: 121 Ks in 408 Abs is a 30% clip. But the team clearly rates him; he’s in the AFL for the 2nd straight off-season and is hitting .327 against the best the minors has to offer. And he was a 21 yr old in AA; lots of 21 yr olds are still in Short-A. He’s also starting to get some prospect notice; generally getting ranked in the 12-15 range in the system. I’m going to say Trending Up … lets hope he can put up .800 OPS figures in AA in 2017.

Round 4: Nick Pivetta, Juco RHP (starter) New Mexico Juco. Traded 7/28/15 to Philadelphia for Jonathan Papelbon. He had a solid year starting between AA and AAA and could feature for the Phillies as a 9/1 callup next year. For all of us that can’t stand these moves for closers (see above lost 1st rounder), this may have the jeopardy of haunting us for years if Pivetta becomes a regular rotation member of an NL East rival. Maybe they’ll leave him off their 40-man roster this coming off-season and we can Rule5 draft him

Round 5: Austin Voth, Coll Jr RHP (starter) UWashington: 7-9, 3.15 ERA in 25 starts for AAA Syracuse. 133/57 K/BB in 157 IP, 1.24 whip, 3.53 FIP, .279 BABIP. Another year, another solid season for Voth. I’m not sure what else there is for him to accomplish in the Minors at this point; he seems to be the pitcher that he is. His BABIP was in-line with his career numbers, he’s slightly regressed in a K/9 rate since arriving at AAA, and his ERA seems to be in line with his career numbers. As discussed in this space earlier this year, I’m not quite sure why the team didn’t add him at the 9/1 roster expansion date; clearly they’re going to add him ahead of Rule-5 (which they did) but instead chose to leave him on the sidelines while they had September tryouts for Mat Latos. Clearly he’s behind several of his AAA rotation mates on the depth chart, but I feel like he could still be a valuable rotation member for the Nats or someone else. Given our starter depth, one has to think he’s trade bait at this point (he’s behind Lopez, Giolito and Cole clearly). He seems like the kind of guy a team like Oakland would love. Trending Up. Post writing update: with the firesale of Nats SP candidates, Voth suddenly is like 2nd in line for getting MLB starts, so we look forward to seeing him in a Nats uniform at some point in 2017 and seeing if he’s the 2nd coming of Tanner Roark … or if he’s more like Taylor Jordan.

Round 6: Cody Gunter, Juco 3B/RHP (reliever) from Greyson College: 0-0 in 2/3rds of an IP for GCL before getting shutdown for the season. He looked halfway decent for Auburn in 2015 while converting from his drafted position (3B) to the mound, but 2016 is a big step-back. I don’t know what to expect in 2017; perhaps a shot at the Hagerstown pen or an outright release. Trending Down.

Round 7: Jimmy Yezzo, Coll Jr 1B from UDelaware. Released on 7/22/15. Played a full season with the Washington PA team in the Indy Frontier League, hitting .220.

Round 8: David Napoli, Coll Sr LHP (relief) from Tulane. Released 3/16/16 after four seasons where he never got above A ball.

Round 11: John Simms, Coll jr RHP (starter) from Rice. 8-5, 3.30 ERA in 29 games (11 starts) for AA. 79/28 K/BB ratio in 92 2/3rds innings, 1.08 whip, 3.84 fip, .254 babip. Simms was the opening day starter for Harrisburg in 2016, but never seemed destined for the rotation; he was mostly a long reliever/spot starter, never throwing even 90 pitches in an outing. He did not go to the AFL this year after going last year; what is his planned usage going forward? His numbers look good; is he destined to move up to AAA and be a 6th starter again? He seems to be able to compete, so we’ll see how he does against more veteran/mature competition in 2017. Trending Steady.

Round 12: Andrew Cooper, Juco RH relief pitcher from Sierra College. Released on 1/12/16, not even getting a chance to compete for a spot in the High-A bullpen. Seems like the team let him try to earn his way up on the field and it never happened.

Round 14: David Masters, Juco SS/3B from Central Arizona College: Slashed just .174/.259/.280 with 56/23 K/BB in 236 ABs in High-A. 6HR, 1SB. Masters seemed to play every other day in a utility role for Potomac, posting anemic batting stats but staying with the team the whole year. I thought he was in trouble after hitting just .226 LAST year but he stuck around the whole season. I said this last season, but it seems like Masters isn’t long for the organization. Trending down.

Round 15: Isaac Ballou, Coll Sr OF/CF from Marshall (via Germantown, MD). Slashed .255/.332/.386 mostly for AA Harrisburg. 77/42 K/BB in 373 AA at-bats, 6hr, 7SB. Ballou split time between the corner OF spots and had a couple of stints covering for Syracuse. Ballou didn’t stick as a starter in AAA, instead repeating AA for the most part. Depending on how the MLB roster numbers shake out, he may have the same issue in 2017. Trending Steady.

Round 16: Willie Allen, Juco Corner OF from Oklahoma/Newtown, MA. Did not sign; transferred to Lewis-Clark State (ID), where he played for a year in 2015, then has apparently disappeared. He was not on their 2016 roster, and he does not appear to still be playing.

Round 21: Justin Thomas, Coll Sr LH relief pitcher from Southern Arkansas. 3-2, 4.75 ERA while repeating High-A. 36/21 K/BB in 47 1/3 relief innings, 1.37 whip, 4.50 fip, .281 babip. Last year I liked Thomas and thought he’d easily move up to AA. Didn’t happen; he repeated Potomac and his numbers went down. His lefty-lefty splits aren’t especially good, which precludes his value as a lefty specialist, so I wonder what his role is going forward at this point. I’d guess he’ll compete for AA spot but may be a release candidate. Trending down.

Round 22: Cody Dent, Coll Sr SS from UFlorida. Released 7/15/16 after getting demoted out of High-A and hitting just .195 as a 24-yr old in low-A. Even his pedigree (he is the son of legendary Bucky Dent) couldn’t save him.

Round 24: Matthew DeRosier, Juco RHP (starter/reliever) from Southwestern College (CA). 3-3, 4.54 ERA in 14 low-A starts before hitting the D/L on 6/30/16 for the rest of the season. 59/18 K/BB in 67 1/3 innings, 1.32 whip, 3.25 fip, .325 babip. DeRosier was in the opening day rotation for Hagerstown and lasted there for 3 months before getting hurt. DeRosier was a young JuCo signee; he just finished his 4th pro season but he turned 22 in July, so we’re not too worried that he’s still in Low-A. But he needs to start making some progress before he ages out of the system. His FIP is better than his ERA, but we have no idea what the injury was. I’d guess he’ll compete for the Potomac rotation in 2017. Trending Steady.

Round 25: Travis Ott, HS LH starting pitcher. Traded 12/17/14 along with Steven Souza in the Trea Turner/Joe Ross deal. Repeated Short-A for the *third* year and was phenomenal in 2016. Why keep him there? I know Tampa is “conservative” when it comes to promoting pitching prospects, but keeping a talented HS pitcher in the same classification for three years running seems dumb.

Round 26: Garrett Hampson, HS SS from Reno, NV. Did not sign; honored commitment to Long Beach State. Had a monster collegiate career and was drafted in the 3rd round by Colorado. Signed a $750k bonus and had an .845 OPS in Short-A Boise. Could be one that got away.

Round 27: Bryce Harman, HS LH starting pitcher from Richmond, VA (Byrd HS). Did not sign; honored commitment to East Carolina University. Hit .242 his Junior year starting and was not drafted.

Round 32: Pat Boling, Coll Jr LHP: Did not sign, chose to return to U. of Georgia for his senior season. He posted a 4.94 ERA his senior year, was not re-drafted, and does not appear he played any independent ball.

Round 33: Andrew Dunlap, HS C/RHP from Houston. Did not sign. Honoring a commitment to Rice University. He has struggled to find the field for Rice, not playing in 2014 or 2015 and hitting .197 in limited PT his junior year in 2016.

Round 34: Jake Walsh, Coll Sr LH relief pitcher. Released 3/16/16, before the season started. This one I still do not get to this day. Look at his minor league numbers: he has a career 1.65 ERA!! All his peripherals look good. I just don’t get this at all. I thought he’d be at least in the AA rotation in 2016; instead he’s out of the game.

Round 35: Lukas Schiraldi, Juco RHP from Texas. Did not sign; instead transferred to U Texas. Drafted in 2014 in the 15th round by Seattle; in 2016 he struggled with the jump to High-A (with the caveat that he’s in the California league).

Round 36: Reid Humphreys, HS SS from Missouri. Did not sign. Honoring commitment to Mississippi State. Drafted in the 7th round in 2016 by Colorado, signed for $227k, and threw a few games in the rookie league. Btw, he converted to the mound in college and is now a RHP reliever.

Round 37: Karsten Whitson, RH starting pitcher from Florida. Did not sign, returned to U Florida for his senior/4th year. Was drafted by Boston in 2014 as an 11th rounder (likely bonus; max of $100k), released on 3/9/16. An ignominious ending to a career that started with him declining 1st round money. As Keith Law says: “Always take the money.”

Round 38: Caleb Hamilton, HS SS from Washington State. Did not sign; honoring commitment to U of Washington. He was drafted in the 23rd round this year by Minnesota and signed. He hit .207 for their rookie league team.

Round 39: Robbie Tenerowicz, HS 2B/SS from California. Did not sign; honoring commitment to UC Berkeley. He was drafted in the 27th round this year by Tampa Bay and signed. He hit .291 with some pop for their rookie league team.

Round 40: Shaun Anderson, HS RH starting pitcher from Florida. Did not sign; honoring commitment to U of Florida. At Florida he was a significant part of their pre-season #1 team, serving as the closer. He was drafted in the 3rd round by Boston, signed for $700k, and then gave up 12 hits and 9 runs in his Short-A debut. He’ll try it again fresh in 2017.

Wow; this class is really looking poor. Just two players who I still think are trending up in Voth and Ward. And even though I rate Voth, I sense he’s perhaps he’s limited to being a 4-A/5th starter. As noted before, no 1st rounder and a blatant fail on Johansen the 2nd rounder have made this class look pretty weak. It’d look a bit better if Ward (3rd rounder) turned out, but the cashing in of the 4th rounder (Pivetta) for a short-term head case rental looks equally wasteful in hindsight.

On the bright side … it makes Rule 5 decisions pretty easy. We’ll circle back to this post when we do the Rule5 analysis, but right now the only candidate here worth protecting is Voth. (Update post-writing: we were right; the only one added was Voth and nobody here got drafted).

Zobrist’s hit won it for the Cubs, and won him the series MVP award. Photo via bleachereport

So, we just saw a pretty darn good World Series, culminating in a very good Game 7. The Cubs win was obviously historic; no need to repeat all the other post-game analysis going on to that end.

The question here is; where does Game 7 rank historically? We all suffer from recency bias, and many (most) of us were not around for such other classic games (1924 World Series game 7 going 12 innings and Walter Johnson pitching 4 innings on one day’s rest, 1960 game 7 featuring Mazeroski‘s famous walk-off homer, or Bobby Thompson‘s “Shot Heard ‘Round the World” to win the 1951 NL Pennant). The normally sane Jayson Stark just posted that 2016’s Game 7 was “the Greatest ever game” in the long history of the sport.

However, I’m skeptical of calling *anything* that just happened, the best ever, so quickly after it ended.

On the “plus” side for its lofty status; Game 7 featured two long suffering franchises and was historic just on its own because of it. It was a Game 7, which only happens about one in every four Series. It went into extra innings, only the fifth time that’d ever happened. It featured a clutch and improbable late inning comeback to tie a game that seemed out of reach (Rajai Davis‘ 8th inning homer off of Aroldis Chapman), and it ended with the tying run on base and the winning run at the plate for nail-biting.

On the “negative” side; it was a sloppy game (4 errors, 3 by the winning side) that featured decidedly “un-clutch” pitching performances by the two marquee relievers (Chapman and Andrew Miller), both patently exhausted from their workloads this post-season. Neither starter even qualified for a decision. The pitching in general was substandard; the teams combined for 24 hits and 15 runs; this is a far cry from Jack Morris‘ 10-inning shutout in the 1991 Game 7. And thanks to the continuing trend of endless delays caused by interminable mound visits and bullpen switches, the game time (not even accounting for the rain delay) was nearly 4 and a half hours.

So, for me, no this wasn’t the greatest ever game. But it was still darn good. How good?

No. 13: Oct. 26, 1997: Indians @ Marlins; Edgar Renteria wins it for Fish in a World Series game 7 classic.

No. 12: Oct. 31, 2001: D-backs @ Yankees; Tino Martinez ties it with a 2-out, 2-run homer in the bottom of the 9th and Derek Jeter hits first November homer and earns himself the nickname for which he’s continued to be known.

No. 10: Oct. 15, 1988: Athletics @ Dodgers; Injured slugger Kirk Gibson hits a pinch hit walk-off home run off of the dominant Dennis Eckersley for one of the most magical home runs in baseball history.

No. 8: Oct. 12, 1986: Red Sox @ Angels; Dave Henderson hits an improbable 3-run homer in the 9th to help Boston come back from 1-out away from elimination to eventually beat the Angels in the 86 ALCS.

No. 7: Oct. 14, 2003: Marlins @ Cubs; The infamous Steve Bartman game, which overshadowed an utter collapse by Mark Prior, Alex Gonzalez, the Cubs bullpen AND Kerry Wood the following day to continue the Cubs curse that lasted … until this week.

No. 3: Oct. 25, 1986: Red Sox @ Mets; Probably the most “infamous” game of all time, especially to Boston fans, as Bill Buckner‘s error follows a series of mishaps by the Red Sox pitching staff to turn a 10th inning 2 run lead into a game 6 loss.

No. 2: Oct. 27, 1991: Braves @ Twins; Jack Morris‘ seminal performance; a 1-0 10 inning shutout over the Braves in perhaps the best Game 7 of any World Series ever.

No. 1: Oct. 21, 1975: Reds @ Red Sox; the game forever known for Carlton Fisk waving his walk-off homer fair, but which should be known for the unbelievably clutch Bernie Carbo 8th inning homer to tie the game and enable the extra inning fireworks.

I put 2011 Game 6 fourth, just after the top 3 games above. I think I rank 2016’s Game 7 slightly behind it, perhaps (and this would be rather ironic) just before or just after the Bartman game. I think the top three games on this list are so iconic that they’d be hardpressed to beat, and we quickly forget just how amazing the 2011 game 6 was in terms of multiple improbable comebacks.

What say you? How great do you think Game 7 was earlier this week? Am I under-rating it? Over-rating i?

I may have buried the lead of the post in the title, but I figured we’d want a place to react to the big Xmas gift the Nats gave themselves; pending a physical the Nats have signed Daniel Murphy to a 3yr, $37.5M contract. We’ll assume that the contract doesn’t get cancelled for physical reasons (ala Hisashi Iwakuma) or some criminal issue (ala Aroldis Chapman) in the next 72 hours or so and the team makes it official at some point over the weekend.

Nats acquire the left-handed bat they needed to play a position they suddenly found themselves needing coverage in thanks to the Yunel Escobar trade. They also acquire a guy who makes a ton of contact (just 38 Ks last year in 538 PAs … by way of comparison Michael Taylor struck out 158 times in 2015, in *fewer* plate appearances (511 to Murphy’s 538). Murphy also can contribute with some power; 14 homers last season (and another 7 in last year’s post-season), and some speed (not a ton of SBs last year but he stole 23 in 2013). He makes a ton of sense batting in the #2 hole (assuming of course the team finds someone who can actually get on base for him), but he could also slot in at #5 (assuming Bryce Harper bats 3rd, in order to split up the lefties).

More importantly, the Nats take a veteran solid bat off their closest rivals, who don’t really seem in any hurry this off-season to back-fill their holes in the lineup by the departing Murphy or Yoenis Cespedes.

Some thoughts on the the deal and its ramifications on the Nats:

Assuming he gets an even $12.5m in 2016 per his contract’s AAV, the Nats 2016 payroll just jumped up into the $141M range. I think that comes down a bit (assuming the Nats can shed themselves of one or both of their highly paid closers).

The signing costs the Nats the 17th overall pick in the draft. A tough pill to swallow; on his own i’m not entirely sure Murphy is worth that pick. perhaps you can see the value in the significantly lower contract value than what Murphy was probably worth on the open market. I guess you don’t really covet the 17th overall pick when you have just one year left with Scherzer, Strasburg and Harper all together. You have to try to win now with these guys, since more and more it seems clear the team won’t retain either of its young starlets (not with talk of Harper getting a $400M contract).

Ben Zobrist: 4yrs/$52M from the Cubs. Zobrist is four years older, had only a slightly better 2015 split than Murphy (.276/.359/.450 versus .281/.322/.449), play a similar set of positions (4 5 7 and 9 last year for Zobrist, 4 5 and 3 last year for Murphy), and had similar bWARs (1.9 for Zobrist, 1.4 for Murphy). Yet Zobrist gets $14.5M more and one additional year despite being 4 years older and almost guaranteed of being a fossil at the end of his contract. Do you think Qualifying Offers are working? Do you think this is going to be topic #1 to address in the next CBA?

Murphy will require a roster move; the team is at 40/40 on its 40-man. My uneducated guess: Erik Davis.

I’m guessing there’s an open competition between Espinosa and Turner to be the opening day SS. And my guess is that Espinosa wins it for now. Something in my gut tells me that the improvements he’s made plus his superb defensive ability will win out over Turner’s potential. But, no more 2B for Espinosa; he’s either the starter at Short or the utility guy. I could be wrong; maybe Espinosa is destined to be Mr. backup infielder again in 2016, riding the pine while Turner learns how to be a major leaguer. I hope not; I think at this point in his career he’d be so gutted if he got beat out that he’d be close to useless as a super-sub.

Murphy is not especially gifted at 2nd defensively. Negative UZR/150s across the board. But, its not nearly as important having a plus defender there as it is on the right hand side of the infield, and the return of the gifted Rendon plus the near gold-glove quality of Espinosa at short could really help the Nats and their pitching staff convert more ground alls to outs.

All the 2B on the Nats depth chart just became serious trade bait. 40-man roster guys Wilmer Difo and Chris Bostick? 100% blocked for 3 years. Murphy may be able to play other positions … but the positions he can fill are also filled by guys who are better than Murphy and also here for more than 3 years. So I wouldn’t be surprised by some dealing coming soon. Maybe Billy Beane can give us something we need in return for some closer-to-the-majors middle infielders and 5th starters (of which we have plenty in AAA).

$12.5M AAV for a 1.4 bWAR player. Yeah; there’s some serious money in the game right now.

Does this move make the Nats a better team? Yeah I think it does. By himself Murphy doesn’t move the needle a ton, but he gives this team some things they didn’t have yesterday. I like his contact hitting, his lefty bat, the addition of some needed power. The team missed out on so many other guys this off-season, they probably felt they had to make this deal. So they did.

The off-season is off to a great start for the Nats. Photo via majorleagueaholes.com (yes its a site)

Winter meetings this week. I figured I’d wait to start posting rotation reviews until after the craziness goes on (if its anything like last winter).

Here’s some thoughts I have:

If the Nats intend to “completely remake their bullpen” then they’re off to a pretty slow start. We’re already missing out on several key guys who would be good candidates to join the pen. Darren O’Day, Joaquin Soria to start, Ryan Madsen, Jim Johnson or even Mark Lowe (who signed about 2 minutes after publishing this) as other examples. Instead we sign Oliver Perez, a soft-tossing lefty retread to (I guess) replace Matt Thornton, who is perhaps the 5th or 6th most important role to fill in a 7 man rotation. You couldn’t have adequately handled a LOOGY out of our cache of minor league arms? Didn’t we draft like 10,000 lefty arms in the last three years?

And now we hear that the Dodgers are hot on the case of Aroldis Chapman, not that I want to spend what it will take to get him. Yes he’s great, yes he’d be a fantastic closer. No I don’t want to give up a top-100 prospect for one year of his time. (post-publishing update: literally 5 minutes after hitting publish, word comes out that the Dodgers have acquired Chapman).

Why would they non-tender Craig Stammen given the bullpen turnover they already plan to have? Stammen is talking in the press like he’s completely moving on, as if the negotiations went that sour that fast.

Here’s where we stand now: Storen on the chopping block,
Treinen still there, Stammen DFA’d, Thornton a FA, Cedeno DFA’d/traded, Barrett on the D/L with TJ surgery all of 2016, Roark presumably going back to the rotation and Janssen a FA. Throw in late-season acquisition Papelbon also being on the trading block and that’s basically the *entire* bullpen getting turned over. That’s a recipe for disaster.

If the season started tomorrow: I guess the bullpen would be: Papelbon, Storen, Treinen, Perez*, Rivero*, Solis*, Martin. Except that we know that’s not going to happen; you have to think the first two guys are moved one way or another.

Maybe we won’t end up seeing both closers moved and instead we’ll make amends somehow with one of them. Since Papelbon is basically untradeable me thinks the “Lerners are cheap” mentality will win out and he’ll be back for 2016. Awesome. Especially considering the fact that he just filed a grievance against the team for not paying him during his “suspension.” Can’t blame him; the team was stupid for not paying him and thinking they’d just pocket a union player’s salary. Dumb. I hope Dusty Baker has his game face on for dealing with this issue next year, and I hope the whole “Bryce Harper reached out/bros will be bros” BS is not, actually, BS. I’m skeptical.

4. So, is the team going after Ben Zobrist or are they not? Is Zobrist going to be that much better than just keeping Yunel Escobar, who can play 2nd and hit just fine for half the money Zobrist will cost? What’s the urgency of moving Escobar? The way I see it, Rendon goes back to 3rd, Turner plays SS (and if he cannot, then the excellent Danny Espinosa starts at SS instead) and Escobar goes to 2B where his defensive limitations won’t hurt us. Why alter that plan?

5. Where’s the lefty bat going to come from? How about Pedro Alvarez? Still not sure why the Pirates were so quick to non-tender him. I mean, he hit 27 frigging homers last year and his Ks are way down from two years prior. How about buying Alvarez, sticking him at 1st, then shuffling Zimmerman to LF, Werth to right and Harper to CF?

6. Here’s a radical one. Los Angeles and San Francisco both whiff on Zack Greinke, who inexplicably goes to Arizona. Both teams adjusted and bought #3 starters (Iwakuma and Samardzija respectively) but now that basically all the big names are off the market, do you think there’s a possible Stephen Strasburg trade out there? The Dodgers desperately need a Greinke replacement; word on the street is that they’re talking to Miami about Jose Fernandez and that would just be unfair if they got him. Meanwhile, San Francisco’s 3-4-5 starters looks scary right now and they need to keep up (think SF can’t out-spend LA? Google “Mission Rock Development” and see how the Giants are about to become a serious player in the SF commercial real estate market). Even Boston could still be an interesting option: their projected 4-5 aren’t exactly impressive and their new GM is looking to make a splash, and Boston has serious prospect depth. What if the Nats and Boston get together and get a couple of serious prospects for Strasburg? Could you see that? Maybe he gets moved and Giolito gets pushed into service a lot earlier than people thought.

If we moved Strasburg, the Nats would suddenly have a 5th starter hole too (well, unless Giolito became the guy). I don’t really trust our AAA rotation guys to step up so maybe we’d be back in the market for a cheap starter too. Luckily I count like 40 starters who profile like that, and some of them could be had for pretty cheap.

7. I don’t buy that the team needs/wants a CF. But I could be wrong. If we really were targeting a CF, we would have tendered Span. I’ll spit bullets if the sign Dexter Fowler and give up their 1st rounder. If only they could find a power hitting lefty who could play CF (ahem, Bryce Harper).

That’s a good starting point for the Winter meetings. Let the swap meet begin!

The next in a series: previously we reviewed the 2015 season stats for the 2015 draft class and the 2014 draft class. Unlike these other two posts, this one was a bit easier to write. Why? Because I had done this analysis for the 2013 class previously … back in 2013. All I had to do was cut-n-paste that post and all 40 draftees were already listed with key details. Ahhh. I may continue this with previous classes since it was easier to compile. Hopefully I didn’t miss any obvious promotions for key guys like I did previously.

Web links to use while reading:

Stats are pulled from milb.com and/or fangraphs.com; put the player name into the search bar to get his seasonal stats

The MLB Draft Tracker (which I believe is the best draft tracker out there) is the best place to get draft class information.

Round 1: forfeited w/ Rafael Soriano signing, which as I noted in this June 2013 post cost the Nats a shot at one of several highly regarded pitchers drafted just behind our vacated spot. In retrospect, here’s a quick summary of the careers so far of the guys I liked at the time in that spot (Rob Kaminsky, Sean Manaea, Ryne Stanek, Ian Clarkin):

Kaminsky: so far, looks pretty good. Career 2.22 ERA across multiple levels, finishing this year in High-A. Flipped this year to Cleveland from St. Louis (his drafting team) in the Brandon Moss deal.

Manaea: looks awesome after some injury issues in 2013. Finished 2015 going 6-0 with a 1.93 ERA for Midland in AA and was a key prospect going to Oakland in the Ben Zobrist deal. I really liked him in 2013 and thought his hip injury bumped him down the line from being the top 10 talent he was initially projected to be, and nothing he’s done professionally has countered that.

I dunno. I hate to sound like a repeating record on the Soriano signing, but it looks even worse know knowing who we could have had. Knowing how Mike Rizzo loves college arms, you have to think he was likely looking at either Manaea or Stanek, and both those guys are looking like mid-rotation starters perhaps by mid 2016. All for an overpriced malcontent closer we didn’t need and who was eventually supplanted from the role by the same in-house option (Drew Storen) who the team AGAIN tried to supplant with another unnecessary over-priced malcontent (this time Jonathan Papelbon) in 2015 to disastrous results. Do you think Rizzo and Lerner have learned their lesson by now?

Back to the analysis.

Round 2: Jake Johansen, Coll Sr. RH Starting Pitcher Dallas Baptist U.. 1-7, 5.44 ERA with 48/27 K/BB in 48 relief IP, 4.69 fip, .358 babip for Potomac this year. He was pushed to the bullpen full time for 2015 yet was, frankly, awful in relief. This is on top of his 5.19 ERA in 2014 in Hagerstown. This pick is looking more and more like a disaster. I don’t see any silver linings here, other than his K/inning rate (which is thrown off by his 4.5 walks/9 inning rate for his career). Trending Down.

Round 3: Drew Ward, HS 3B. Slashed .249/.327/.358 with 110/39 K/BB in 377 Abs, 6hr for High-A Potomac. Missed a month with an injury, but otherwise took incremental steps back on his performance from his 2014 campaign in Low-A. Where’s the power? Slugging .358 isn’t great, especially for a corner infielder. But there doesn’t seem to be anyone else really preventing him from suiting up for Harrisburg as the starting 3B in 2016. Also worth remembering; he’s a HS draftee so he was a 20-yr old in High-A; quite young. That tempers any criticism. He’s in the Arizona Fall League, a good sign for the team’s opinion of him, so even my opinion may be slightly conservative. Trending Steady.

Round 4: Nick Pivetta, Juco RH Starting Pitcher. 7-4, 2.29 ERA for Potomac in 2015 before getting traded to Philadelphia for Jonathan Papelbon. Was working on a nice improvement over his 2014 campaign for Hagerstown (13-8, 4.22 ERA). Was bumped up to Philly’s AA affiliate in Reading PA and struggled to finish out 2015.

Round 5: Austin Voth, Coll Jr RH Starting Pitcher: 6-7, 2.92 ERA and 148/40 k/bb across 157 ip (28 starts) for AA Harrisburg. 3.07 fip, .284 babip. Another excellent campaign after his three-level jump in 2014. He’s now regularly mentioned in the back-end of Nats top 10 prospect lists and seems like he could be one of the first options considered in 2016 if a MLB starting pitcher gets injured. Looks like a steal of this draft and could be the best player to come out of it by the time all is said and done. Trending Up.

Round 6: Cody Gunter, Juco 3B: 1-0 4.15 ERA, 23/8 K/BB in 21.2 IP for Short-A Auburn, 3.84 fip, .259 babip. Gunter was drafted as a 3B and after two non-descript seasons in Auburn converted to the mound. so far, results look promising; he maintained a K/inning ratio with good control and could be better based on the ERA-FIP delta. I see him getting pushed to the Low-A bullpen in 2016. Trending Steady.

Round 7: Jimmy Yezzo, Coll Jr 1B. Slashed .192/.250/.256 with 36/13 K/BB in 49 games at Potomac, with just one homer, before the team pulled the plug and released him on 7/22/15. Yezzo showed some power in Low-A in 2014 (13 homers in 123 games) but clearly not enough to justify keeping him around as a 1B-only player. This was always going to be the jeopardy with drafting him; he was positionally limited from the start and, despite a great college campaign, couldn’t make the transition in pro ball. Immediately after his release he picked up with a Frontier League team, finishing out the season, so hopefully he gets another shot.

Round 8: David Napoli, Coll Sr LH relief pitcher. Went 7-5, 4.01 ERA with 62/36 K/BB in 60 relief IP mostly for LowA Hagerstown. 3.57 fip, .289 babip. He started with Potomac but spent most of the year in Hagerstown, despite turning 25 during the season. If anything, his numbers took a step back from his 2014 Hagerstown campaign, and given his age and the glut of arms in the system, time may be running out. Or maybe not: i mean, he signed for $15k and basically cost the team nothing and eats innings; that kind of guy is useful to have around. See McGregor, Scott for AAA the last couple of years. Trending Down.

Round 9: Jake Joyce, Coll Sr RH relief pitcher. Released in July 2014 as the 2014 signees started reporting to Vermont after just one season in Auburn where he posted a 5+ ERA. A cheap, senior sign who had to do more to impress and stick around as Napoli has done.

Round 10: Brennan Middleton, Coll Sr SS/2B. Slashed .198/.252/.264 for half a season while repeating LowA despite his age and was summarily released in July 2015. Senior sign, low bonus figure, poor performance all contributed.

Round 11: John Simms, Coll jr RH relief pitcher. 6-6, 2.74 ERA with 48/25 K/BB in 88.2 (15 starts) for Potomac. 4.15 fip, .236 babip. Earned a mid-season promotion and ended the season with 6 starts in Harrisburg’s rotation. Excellent season-over-season improvement for Simms, who will look to do the same thing in AA’s rotation for 2016. The team clearly sees the same potential and sent him to the Arizona Fall League this year. Trending up.

Round 12: Andrew Cooper, Juco RH relief pitcher. 2-2, 3.53 ERA with 35/16 K/BB in 63.2 relief IP for LowA Hagerstown, 3.63 fip, .283 babip. Improved his numbers across the board while repeating LowA. Still isn’t getting the K/9 we’d like to see though. He’ll be 24 in High-A next year in what probably is a make or break season. Trending Steady.

Round 13: John Costa, Juco RH relief pitcher. Released 4/1/15 after being injured most of 2014. Without knowing the details, I’d guess that whatever injury he suffered was a career ender, that he couldn’t show enough improvement in spring training 2015 to merit keeping around. Tough break.

Round 14: David Masters, Juco SS. Slashed .226/.311/.285 with 69/40 K/BB in 354 Abs, 2hr, 3SB mostly in LowA, missed most of May and June. Did earn a promotion to HighA in August to finish out the season. With so many MIF in the system and the likes of Chris Bostick blasting homers in the AFL, Masters may not be long for the organization. Trending down.

Round 15: Isaac Ballou, Coll Sr OF/CF. Slashed .271/.344/.397 with 82/47 K/BB in 431 Abs, 8homers 21steals CF/LF as he jumped two levels (from HighA to AAA) in 2015. A nice season from the local product (hails from Germantown, MD, went to Marshall U). An .876 OPS in AA greased the skids for him to move up the line. He has some speed (56 career SBs in 322 games) and can hit and can play all three OF positions; can he push the likes of Matt den Dekker for a utility OF spot on the big club? Maybe not for 2016, but a strong AAA campaign would help. Trending up.

Round 16: Willie Allen, Juco Corner OF from Oklahoma/Newtown, MA. Did not sign; transferred to Lewis-Clark State (ID). Allen was an odd case at the time; it was literally impossible to find information on him. But he’s definitely playing college ball at Lewis-Clark now. Now known as “William Allen” if you’re trying to find him in various databases, fyi.

Round 17: Geoff Perrott, Coll Sr C. released/retired (2015): never played in 2014 and no record of his official release in milb.com, but clearly he’s done playing.

Round 18: Cory Bafidis, Coll Sr LH relief pitcher. Released July 2014 once the 2014 draftees started showing up in Auburn. This release has troubled me; he had decent numbers in 2013, then got axed after just 6 innings in 2014. Seemed too fast to me.

Round 19: Niko Spezial, Coll Sr LH relief pitcher. Released in May of 2014, even before the draft. Only threw 19 innings in 2013 and none in 2014, not getting a full-team assignment and likely just losing out on the anticipated numbers game.

Round 20: Brenton Allen, Coll Jr Corner OF. As with Bafidis, Released in June 2014 once the 2014 draftees started showing up in Auburn. He only hit .197 in Auburn in 2013 and was clearly replaceable with new 2014 OF draftees.

Round 21: Justin Thomas, Coll Sr LH relief pitcher. 1-6, 3.43 ERA with 50/18 K/BB in 57.2 relief ip for Potomac. 2.84 fip, .300 babip in HighA. Oddly, he’s a lefty but he has much better L-R splits than loogy splits. But, he also wasn’t really used as a loogy, accumulating 57 innings in 28 games. He was more of a swing-man/innings sponge for the team despite never getting an official start. Good peripherals, good K/9 rates, I see him moving up to the AA bullpen easily. Nice find in the 21st round. Trending up.

Round 22: Cody Dent, Coll Sr SS. Slashed .193/.257/.224 with 42/12 K/BB in 161 abs, 1hr, 2sb, mostly in LowA. Played 3B, got moved up to HighA and then went 0-24 in Potomac. He didn’t play after 7/31 but did not appear on any injury report; he was on the TIL for basically the rest of the season. The son of Bucky Dent seems to be getting similar treatment as Ryan Ripken and Cutter Dykstra (also sons of former MLBers); he’s hanging around despite poor numbers. How long can it last with all the MIF options moving up the line? Trending down.

Round 23: Garrett Gordon, Juco Corner OF. Released in March of 2015; hit just .230 in Auburn in 2014 as a corner OF and, as with Allen above, was deemed replaceable with the 2015 crop of players rising up.

Round 24: Matt DeRosier, Juco RH relief pitcher. 0-2, 3.58 ERA with 30/7 K/BB in 27IP (7 starts) mostly in the GCL, having gotten dumped out of Auburn after a couple of poor starts. 2.02 fip, .435 babip in Auburn, so perhaps it was a short-sample-size that was unflattering. He needs to put together a nice string of healthy starts somewhere outside of complex ball though. Trending down.

Round 25: Travis Ott, HS LH starting pitcher. Traded 12/17/14 along with Steven Souza in the Trea Turner/Joe Ross deal. Despite his sterling short-A 2014 season, Tampa had him repeat the NY Penn league, where he was 6-3 with a 3.90 ERA in 13 starts. Odd.

Round 34: Jake Walsh, Coll Sr LH relief pitcher. 2-1, 1.96 ERA, 32/14 K/BB across 36ip as he was promoted from LowA->HighA. 3.51 fip, .273 babip in Potomac. After starting the 2015 season with 17 scoreless innings for Hagerstown, he got bumped up and spent the rest of the season there. Despite his lowly draft status, Walsh has now impressed at every stop and owns a career 1.65 ERA across the various Rookie/A-ball levels. Maybe its time to give this guy a shot at AA? At the very least he looks like a left-handed specialist in training. Trending up.

Round 35: Lukas Schiraldi, Juco RHP from Texas. Did not sign; instead transferred to U Texas. Drafted in 2014 in the 15th round by Seattle, but he has since struggled as a low-A starter, with two straight seasons of 5+ ERA.

Round 37: Karsten Whitson, RH starting pitcher from Florida. Did not sign, returning to U Florida for his senior/4th year. There’s plenty of cautionary stories about Whitson, who turned down 1st round money and eventually was drafted by Boston in 2014 as an 11th rounder (likely bonus; max of $100k). His pro season looks like its a struggle right now; he had just 7IP in 2014, and was listed as “inactive” for all of 2015. Hate to see such a promising arm apparently fizzle out.

The 2013 class is being whittled down quickly; of the 39 initial names, 11 never signed and another 13 have already been cut loose. That only leaves 15 guys to draw conclusions from. I think its safe to say the loss of the 1st rounder and the failures of our 2nd rounder severely dampen this draft, but Voth and Simms give us some promise. I also like what we’re seeing out of long-shots Thomas and Walsh, with some lingering hope that the youngster Ward could make the leap. Meanwhile, two important names out of this draft (Pivetta and Ott) were used to acquire important players; especially Ott’s role in acquiring two every day players of the planned 2016 25-man roster.

Q: Do you see Trea Turner as a future leadoff hitter for the Nationals? If so, when? Ian Desmond has one year left on his contract, so I have to think the front office is counting on his rising through the Minor Leagues quickly like Anthony Rendon.

A: Yes, I can see Trea Turner as a lead-off hitter in the majors. Blazing speed (some scouts have rated his speed at 80 on the 20-80 scale … which is a real rarity), excellent bat skills during his 3 years at NC State (a career college slash line of .342/.429/.507 playing in the nation’s toughest baseball conference), and in short sample sizes in the pros he’s got good OBP numbers. Everything you want in a lead-off guy. In college he had power (8 homers in 54 games his junior year playing with BBCOR bat, 2nd in the ACC); that’s a nice combination if it translates to the pros.

The question I have about Turner is whether he can stick at short. Or, more to the point, if he’ll be a good enough shortstop to appease the defensive-minded Mike Rizzo. All the scouting reports I’ve seen say the same thing: good fielder, great range … and an iffy arm that may push him to second. Well, you have to think Rizzo acquired a guy like Turner specifically because he thinks Turner *can* stick at short, and is a ready-made replacement for Desmond. Otherwise; why get him? Its a heck of a lot easier to find a second baseman than a shortstop in this league (current issues replacing Danny Espinosa notwithstanding).

Can Turner be a fast riser? Well, he’s not nearly as accomplished a college player as Anthony Rendon (who, lets not forget, was College Player of the year as a sophomore). Rendon ended his first pro season in AA and hit his way to the majors permanently by June of the following year. That’s a pretty amazing trajectory. And it included lost time to injury. Turner ended his first pro season in low-A by way of comparison, and needs a two-level jump in 2015 to have a shot at a 2016 debut, and a 2-level jump next year is going to be severely hampered by the fact that he’s likely to be languishing in San Diego’s spring training facility until June, when he can officially be traded. He’s losing a half of year of development time most likely. So, late 2016 to me is a more realistic goal, if everything goes well.

Meanwhile, that leaves a gap in the shortstop coverage if Ian Desmond leaves. Here’s a thought; if Desmond leaves in FA after 2015, you put Espinosa back at his natural shortstop position, find a second baseman (Dan Uggla anyone? ) and then wait for Turner to arrive. If Turner can play short, so be it. If he can’t, you put in at 2nd. I like that plan.

Ladson says the Nats have “been quiet” on Turner since he’s not technically a Nationals player; makes sense; you wouldn’t want tampering charges.

Q: How is Desmond not locked up, or even the No. 1 priority? I understand Jordan Zimmermann is a staff ace, but shortstop is a prime position and every team desires one. Desmond is one of the best in baseball and can’t be replaced.

A: Because Desmond took a step back both offensively (from a 113 to a 103 OPS+) and defensively (UZR/150 from 4.4 to 0.1) in 2014 from the previous year. I’d be slightly hesitant too. I used to think that Elvis Andrus‘s contract was a fair comp for Desmond. But now it looks like the Andrus contract was actually a massive over-pay, and valuing Desmond may be more difficult than we thought.

When I think about roster construction, you go up “the spine” of the team. Catcher, Pitchers, Short and Center Field. Those are the key positions to lock up with quality players. So no arguments that Desmond and Shortstop in general are huge priorities. But now the problem becomes this: is Desmond’s 2014 decline a one-off or a concern? And, what is he worth? If you think Andrus is an overpay ($15M a year through 2022), and if Troy Tulowitzki is the best offensive shortstop in the game (at $20M/year for the next four years with annual injury issues), then where does Desmond fit in? Some sampling of shortstop contracts: J.J. Hardy is 3/yrs/$40M for AAV of about $14M/year. Jose Reyes makes $22M/year for the next three years, which seems rather high to me. Jimmy Rollins is on an $11M option for 2015. Jhonny Peralta is on a 4yr/$53M deal for an AAV of about $13M. So clearly the market is at least $15M/year for a quality shortstop.

Based on who the Nats have in the pipeline at short (past Turner … practically nobody) and based on who projects to be available in FA in 2016 (also practically nobody), yes I think Desmond is a priority. My guess is that the front office is juggling all sorts of stuff right now, and just hasn’t come to any conclusions. I’d be perfectly comfortable offering him 5 to 6 years at an AAV of $15M (6yrs/$90M) with a club option; that’s clearly not enough as the team has offered him *more* than that in the past apparently and he’s turned it down. He’s entering his age 29 season; that’d lock him up through his age 34 season … a gamble for a shortstop, but a good one for a franchise player who has been with the organization since he was 18. I would have postulated that perhaps Desmond (with his Florida ties and the heavy Yankees presence down there) wanted to slide into the vacated Derek Jeter spot … but the Yankees just acquired a long term SS in Didi Gregorius, so maybe Desmond’s agent and him are strategizing. Besides; Washington seems like a better positioned franchise right now than the Yankees (as hard as that is to write) for post-season positioning.

Ladson points out the Nats offered Desmond in excess of $100m and then cryptically says “lets see what happens in the next few weeks.”

Q: I noticed Rafael Furcal is a free agent. Might the Nats sign him as a veteran middle-infield stopgap until Turner and Wilmer Difo are ready?

A: Rafael Furcal?! Wow,that’s a heck of a pull. You mean the same Furcal who has played in a grand total of 9 major league games since 2012 thanks to injuries and will be 37 next season? He hasn’t played a full season of injury-free baseball since 2009. Why would we possibly consider this guy? No way; there’s younger, more reliable middle infield options out there. Difo, by the way, played in low-A last year. I don’t think we’re seeing him anytime soon. Mid 2017 maybe? Ladson says that Furcal *tore* his hamstring in Winter Ball; geeze. He also states the obvious; we’ll see lots of Dan Uggla and that we should trade for Ben Zobrist. Thanks for the scoops there, Bill.

Q: What are your predictions as to how the NL East will stack up in 2015, especially given personnel changes and improved health throughout the division?

A: Nats win the division with 90 wins. Marlins 2nd with like an 83-79 record. Mets in 3rd at about .500. Braves in 4th at about 75 wins. Phillies last place, with somewhere in the 68 range of wins. Ladson seems to go Nats-Marlins-Mets too.

Q: I’m frustrated by Desmond’s strikeouts. If he could make contact for 20 percent of his strikeouts, he would be all world. What can the Nats do to help him make more consistent contact — just patience at the plate for better pitch selection?

A: Welcome to modern baseball. Swing for the fences all the time; strikeouts be damned. Nobody remembers you struck out 180 times when you hit 20+ dingers from the short-stop position. Now … strike out 122 times in 119 games and hit .220? Then you’re in trouble, Mr. Espinosa. As far as the question goes; maybe you park Desmond further down the order, tell him he’s not a run producer any more and tell him to focus less on homers, more on solid contact. Maybe that helps. Maybe not; the Nats offense is seemingly always a man down, which means Desmond is always pushed into a 3-4-5 hole spot, where he’s looking to drive in runs. I expect similar numbers in 2015. Ladson reminds us that Desmond had the flu last year.

Espinosa continues to be the leading player on the minds of Nats fans. Photo AP via mlb.com

Happy Holidays! What a nice surprise; mlb.com Nats beat reporter Bill Ladson posted his first mailbag/inbox column since January 2014. He must have been bored during the holiday lull in baseball news.

As always, since its been like a year since I did one of these, I write my response question by question before reading Ladson’s, and sometimes edit questions for clarity.

Q: Assuming the Nationals don’t make any acquisitions via trade or free agency, what is their in-house solution for second base?

A: Well, in order they’d likely start Danny Espinosa and bat him 8th. And, if the fans’ had their choice, he’d abandon switch hitting, bat righty only and probably have a career resurgence. Just a reminder: Espinosa’s career lefty split is .213/.283/.362 while his career righty split is .271/.343/.460. Espinosa is so good defensively that i’m not entirely opposed to him being the starter; he can spell Ian Desmond at short (in fact, I’ve always thought Espinosa was a better shortstop defensively) and makes up for his awful switch hitting by being so good defensively (but not nearly enough to prevent the team from shopping).

After Espinosa, you have utility guy Kevin Frandsen having stated publicly he wants to be considered for the job. Problem with Frandsen is this; he’s been even WORSE offensively the last two years than Espinosa; he has a .624 OPS in the last two years. I hope there’s not anyone who thinks he’s a better solution. Youngster Wilmer Difo was just added to the 40-man roster, but he’s never played above low-A. That’s basically the roster of middle infielder options on the 40-man roster. Jeff Kobernus played 2B in college but has long since been converted to an outfielder in this organization, so he’s not really an option either. Looking deeper into the minor leagues, there’s some MLFA options at AAA (the likes of DC-native Emmanuel Burriss, current MLFA and Virginia-native Will Rhymes, or maybe even our own long-time org player Jose Lozada), and a couple of Nats draftees who have yet to pan out (Rick Hague and Jason Martinson). But none of these guys are better options than just sticking with Espinosa.

Hence, the reason the team is looking at trade/FA options. There’s a ton of 2B options that are likely available in trade or still on the FA market; its arguable that any of them are better options than just staying the course though. So it wouldn’t surprise me at all if the team stood pat.

Ladson reviews the same three 40-man options and comes to the same conclusions as I do, and says he sees a trade. He likes a trade for Ben Zobrist, like I do, but Tampa is notoriously hard-bargaining. What would we be willing to give up to get Zobrist?

A: I’m sure Strasburg would get a better return; he’s got two years of control instead of just one, and is scheduled to make a third of what Zimmermann will make in 2015. I feel Strasburg is in some ways actually under-rated; despite a pedestrian 14-11 record in 2014, here’s his ranks in the entire majors in some quick categories: 13th in fWAR, 3rd in xFIP, 13th in FIP, 5th in K/9, and 5th in SIERA. Teams are now smarter when it comes to acquiring control; a year of Zimmermann at $16M+ isn’t going to bring back that much anyway (see what the Rays got for David Price, for less money and TWO years of control).

And then there’s this: teams that are trying to win do not trade pitchers like Strasburg. Plain and simple; it would be fan-relations suicide to move Strasburg right now. The team just won the division by 17 games and their closest rival is having a fire sale; why on earth would the Nats look to move someone like Strasburg? So that being said, why are they willing to trade Zimmermann? I think it comes down to several reasons:

1. Money: As i’ve discussed in the past, the Nats payroll was at $135M at the beginning of 2014 and projects to nearly $150M without any subsequent moves. 150M minus Zimmermann’s 16.5M 2015 salary looks an awful lot like the payroll from 2014….

2. Practicality: You don’ t need to win your division by 15 games. You can still win by 5 games and make the playoffs. If the Nats can trim payroll, turn Zimmermann into something that look better than what we may get in a supplemental 1st round pick, AND still win the division in 2015? Wins all around.

Ladson says several things I disagree with; he thinks Zimmermann would bring back a “kings ransom” and he thinks Rizzo is going to “get a deal done” with Zimmermann this off-season.

Q: Given that he’s at an age where he needs to play regularly, does Tyler Moore have a chance of backing up first baseman Ryan Zimmerman in ’15?

A: Not sure what Tyler Moore‘s age has to do with anything; if you’re 22 or 42 you’re going to get ABs in the majors if you can play. To the question at hand; right now i’m projecting Moore to be the 25th guy on the active roster. That doesn’t mean he’ll make it, but he does fill a position of need; right handed power off the bench. Had the Nats not traded Stephen Souza Moore might be a goner. Now? He could still make the team. But somehow I sense that perhaps the team will look to flip him and/or bring in veteran competition for his bench spot. Ladson states the obvious, saying the team will look to trade him since he’s out of options.

Q: Since it appears Michael Taylor is considered the future center fielder, can you see the team holding on to Denard Span beyond ’15?

A: In a word; nope. I’m guessing that Taylor will get some experience as a backup in 2014 (and frankly may get a ton of at-bats, since our outfield isn’t exactly an injury-free haven), and soon the team will have a guy who can play a better CF than Span, hit with more power and run with more speed. All in all, I think Taylor will be an improvement over Span in nearly every category and for 1/20th the cost. Ladson says it depends on how Taylor does.

Q: Last year, the Nationals’ pinch-hitting average was terrible. Any hope it gets better?

A: So far … not really. The bench is still projecting to be basically the same guys as in 2014. Frandsen, Loboton, McLouth and Moore. The only change is the dumping of Scott Hairston for Taylor. But Taylor’s K rate is still high, which means we’ll likely see continued crummy pinch hitting. Ladson points out the Nats havn’t had a good bench since 2012.

Q: How is Lucas Giolito doing? Will he fill a rotation spot if Zimmermann or Doug Fister is traded?

A: Not in 2015. Maybe by mid 2016 if Giolito has a two-level jump this year. Giolito’s best case is to completely shut down high-A in April and force a promotion to AA by mid-season. If that happens, then maybe we’re looking at a mid-April call up in 2016, just in time to replace the potentially departed FAs Zimmermann and/or Fister. But this is a very heady dream; remember; Giolito is still on an innings limit, is still just 20 years of age (he turns 20 in July of 2015), and most pitchers his age are still in college, yet to even be drafted.

If we move Zimmermann or Fister this off-season, then we’re looking at drawing from our AAA rotation for the 5th starter. One of Treinen, Hill, Jordan or Cole. Probably in that order, thanks to 40-man and experience implications.

Ladson is bullish on Giolito; thinks he’ll start in AA and get a call-up in September. That’d be pretty aggressive.

A: Disagree here. When healthy Ramos is a beast. Remember he was the frigging opening day 2014 clean-up hitter. The last thing the Nats needed to do was spend millions on someone like Martin. Lobaton is more than adequate of a backup, cost-controlled and we traded a hefty price (Nathan Karns) to acquire him. Ladson agrees with me.